LESS than a week since Metro Manila was placed under regular general community quarantine (GCQ), two cities in the region reported significant increases in their average coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases, the independent OCTA Research Team said yesterday.
The OCTA said the cities of Manila and Makita saw sharp increases in their cases during the period of July 14 to 20.
Data showed that Manila saw its average daily new cases rise to 109 from 82, while Makati saw an increase to 74 from 55.
Aside from the two Metro cities, the OCTA said an increase in cases were also recorded in Baguio and Laoag cities also during the same period.
Malacañang has place the National Capital Region (NCR) under the regular GCQ from July 16 until the end of the month. It was under GCG with “heightened” restrictions and later on, “some” restrictions, after it was locked down following a surge in cases in late March until the middle of April.
It has been classified as “low” risk by the Department of Health (DOH) after a drop in cases was noted, but this was opposed by the OCTA, which said the region remains at “moderate” risk.
The OCTA said that aside from the two Metro Manila cities, Baguio City also saw an uptick to 64 from 49, while Laoag City had its average number of cases climb to 55 from 31 new cases.
The sharp rise in cases in the four cities comes on the heels of the DOH report that it had detected local cases of the Delta variant of the coronavirus in the country.
In its report, the OCTA also classified as “high risk” 11 local government units (LGUs), which are Davao City, Cebu City, Iloilo City, Bacolod City, Cagayan de Oro City, General Santos City, Baguio City, Laoag City, Mariveles in Bataan and the cities of Makati and Taguig.
On the other hand, based on their high reproduction rates, the OCTA classified Cebu City (1.48), Laoag City (2.16), and Lapu-Lapu City (1.53) as “very high” risk; while tagged as “high” risk are Manila City (1.21), Makati City (1.24), Baguio City (1.11), Taguig City (1.16), and Mariveles (1.27).
Getting “very high” risk classification due to average daily attack rate per 100,000 population are Laoag City (47.87) and Mariveles (28.53), while Davao City (12), Cebu City (10.47), Iloilo City (20.46), Bacolod City (15.61), Makati City (11.84), General Santos City (10.20), and Baguio City (17.30) were grouped as “high” risk.
Overall, the OCTA said the Philippines remained to be at “moderate” risk after tallying a reproduction rate of 0.98 and average daily attack rate of 4.79.
As for the NCR, the group’s report showed that it is also at “moderate” risk classification with 1.08 reproduction rate and 5.39 average daily attack rate.
